Abuja, July 8, 2025 – The Presidency has rejected the position of the IMF in a recent article which raised concerns over Nigeria’s economic trajectory.
It describes the publication as “very fatalistic” and an unhelpful assessment of ongoing reforms.
Tope Fasua, the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Affairs, faulted the tone and timing of the Fund’s message, describing it as both discouraging and destabilising.
Fasua, who spoke on Tuesday on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, said: “This administration under President Tinubu has done some of the deepest reforms that we have seen in a while.
“We only just got the tax bills signed into law—bills that offer relief to low-income earners and double the tax threshold for small businesses.
“We haven’t even allowed those measures to settle, yet we’re hearing all sorts of very fatalistic statements from different places, including, unfortunately, the IMF.”
“Sometimes one wants to think they go into overdrive, almost every week or every two to three days, there’s a statement on Nigeria. At the end of the day, it leaves everyone in a state of confusion.
“We’re not asking for a pat on the back; we’re just saying, you know what, give us a breather. Let us be able to implement the policies we’ve started.
“They acknowledge that the reforms are good, yet they keep demanding more, and it’s almost like being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
“Give us a break; let us be able to know where we are going before coming at us at every angle and generally throwing us off whack. It’s like a house that is completely dilapidated.
“And we’re being asked to provide full comfort in two years after removing the roof and working on the foundation. That’s not realistic.
“The IMF has both an advisory and a lending arm, and sometimes it looks like their advice clashes with their lending stance. We don’t even know which to believe anymore.
“We’ve done the right things. They say they want more—but the government also has a right to say, ‘Let us see how what we’ve done turns out.’ Like the president would say, ‘Let the poor breathe.
“They’ve recommended even more painful reforms. They want us to keep raising interest rates. But interest rates are now stabilising. The Central Bank has a view to begin to reduce them gradually.
“They complained that inflation is high. Do they expect it to drop to single digits in a quarter? That’s unrealistic. Inflation has reduced over the last three months and will likely fall further. Whoever wrote that statement is not sounding like an economist, because an economist is not a fantasist.”
The IMF, in the article published on July 7, 2025 and titled “How Nigeria Can Unleash Its Economic Potential,” acknowledged that President Bola Tinubu’s administration had initiated important reforms, but said the impact had been slow in reducing inflation, tackling poverty, or strengthening investor confidence.
The Fund said inflation had remained persistently above 20 percent, while food insecurity had deepened. It recommended firmer monetary policy, effective budgetary discipline, and better redistribution of fuel subsidy savings to critical infrastructure and social safety nets.
